“We are suing to save lives,” said HIAS Managing Attorney Liz Sweet. “If implemented, this revised Executive Order will create the same devastating consequences for tens of thousands of refugees who our government promised safety and freedom in the United States.”

On Wednesday night, HIAS filed an amicus or “friend of the court” brief in this case, in support of the plaintiffs. Our brief highlights some of the individuals who have been impacted by this order, to show the specific ways in which “the Executive Order is causing needless and unjustifiable irreparable harm to vulnerable refugees and their families.”

Legal challenges have suspended many parts of the Muslim ban, but our doors remain closed to some 60,000 vulnerable people seeking safety in this country. That hurts people like Eden, Sunam and Magan who have been separated from loved ones. The family reunions they had long hoped for now seem out of reach. We're challenging that in court.

We cannot remain silent as Muslim refugees are turned away just for being Muslim, just as we could not stand idly by when the U.S. turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Europe during the 1930s and 40s. The Torah requires us to intervene. To stop these things from being done by our government and in our name.

Today, HIAS initiated a legal challenge against President Trump’s executive order halting refugee resettlement. As a religious organization that specializes in rescuing people from religious and political persecution, HIAS is challenging the constitutionality of this order, on the grounds that it discriminates against one religion while favoring others.

In more than 135 years serving refugees, HIAS has routinely represented asylum seekers in court against the U.S. government. Never before, however, has HIAS itself sued the U.S. government, let alone the President of the United States. Until today.

Late Sunday night, HIAS filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in the case of Washington v. Trump, currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “The Executive Order has fractured many refugee families whose safety and desire for unification were already fragile,” notes the brief.